Slow Down, Will You!
by Thessaly
Summary: Hey! That was below the belt!  Galileo and Scaramouche en route to the Seven Seas.  Copious uses of Hey and Yeah, but no kissing.  Unmitigated fury from an author who needs a break from writing romance.  Language.


This is a reaction against the romantic semi-fluff I've been writing all summer. I thought, I need hatred, I need frustration, I need…Scara and Gazz. So, we got more; I'm going to help Partial Anaesthesia and Tekya take over the Musicals section. Other than that, I think Hannah Jane Fox and my Live at Wembley CDs are the only things that keep me sane while I pack. I don't own anything. Oh, and, um, I put my favorite lines back in because they don't appear on the CD. Heh. Also, some of the lyrics for Hammer to Fall may not be exactly right, but they're what I _thought_ I heard on the CD and I liked them that way. (But it's in my head…Well, keep it there.)

"Yeah, well Gazz, I'm coming along." He didn't answer as he walked away from the bus, just kept walking. We went up, towards the mounds of rock on the left. We were, as far as I could tell, somewhere in the Old Alps, but it was little hard to tell. I'd completely lost my sense of direction in the couple of days we spent underground running away from the Heartbreak. We had a kind of map thing, so it wasn't like we were totally lost. Basically, Meat gave me some of their old-world stuff – paper – with a picture of a load of tunnels. One of the Bohemians had come from a long way away or something, and he'd drawn the path he followed. I couldn't even remember why she'd given it to me, but she did. When I asked her what happened to him, she just looked kind of grim. So we went through the Peds walkway on the Chunnel; I figured that because we'd heard the super-bullet trains go by. Gazz nearly wet himself when we heard the first one. Hah. And then we'd been underground a bit more, just following the map thingy, and finally come out when the tunnel slanted up to the real outdoors. And then we found the bus, and stopped running.

Mid-afternoon we reached the rocks and started threading our way between them. I found out later that Killer Queen and Khashoggi had demolished what was left of the Old Alps. Probably a good thing, or Gazz and I would have had to climb real mountains. As it was, we just walked past piles of rubble. For the whole bloody day. Escape from Khashoggi's I'm-the-Evil-Villain Lab hadn't been really fun, and two days of tunnels was just hellishly dirty. Neither had been great preparation for actually walking to Switzerland.

The sun was going down over my left shoulder. That's not right…I remembered from a couple of old geo films that to get to Old Geneva we needed to have the setting sun _behind_ us. "Oi, Fearless and directionally-challenged Leader, we're going the wrong way."

"Shut up," said Gazz indistinctly.

"Dude, you go that way, you're going to end up in Australia or something."

"I _know_ where I'm going."

"How? The little voices inside your head? Far as I can remember, I'm the only one who knows any geo round here."

He turned around. "Look, if you don't like it, you can go the other way."

I hate it when people try to be sensible. Especially when they really aren't, like Gazz. I walked up and grabbed his arm. "Come on, Gazza Fizzer. Let's go."

He really hated it when I called him that; his face kind of twitched every time I said it. He shrugged me off. "Piss off, or go away."

"No such luck." We paused, both tired. "Look, do you have any food or anything?"

"No. Do you?"

"No." I sighed. In the tunnels we'd been pretty successful scavenging, and we'd found the disposal units from the super-bullet trains with some real food in them. And there had been a lot of grapes and nuts and stuff near the bus. "Damn. Do you know how to make a fire?"

"Uh. No."

"Gazz, do you know how to do _anything_?"

"Yes!"

"Whatever." I looked up at the purple mountain twilight and put my pack down on the ground so I could rub my shoulders.

Gazz sat down. "You can keep going if you want; I'm going to stay here tonight."

I looked at the sky. "Whatever. I hope it doesn't rain." I pulled the blanket from the bus out of my pack and dug around until I found some of the wiring and batteries from the bus. Gazz, on the other side of the circle from me, appeared to be sulking. Oh yeah, he was _real_ mature, that one. He didn't move, so I had to go out and find something to burn, and then I had to bring it back and figure out how the hell you built a fire with battery power as your starter. I could probably have driven the bus, but fires are kind of different. And batteries…gah. I mean, Planet Mall is more or less founded on silicon, so batteries are kind of out there to begin with. I only knew about them because I had spent most of high school hiding in the tech lab and dismantling the really old machines.

"Where'd you get all that stuff?" said Gazz from out of the darkness. The evening light had vanished while I was out trying to find fire stuff.

"Where do you think? The bus."

"You took the _engine_ apart?" He sounded kind of surprised.

"Yeah. So?"

"So, don't girls not usually know how to do that?"

Jerk. You'd think he would have learned by now. "What makes you think I'm a usual girl?"

"Dunno. I suppose the fact that you're a completely unreasonable dictator should have warned me," said Gazz sulkily.

"Oh my, oh my, oh my," I said in my best Commander Khashoggi voice, "was that an attempt at an insult I just heard? Keep trying Gazz." I got up and walked out of our little stone circle. When I came back I threw him some of the fruit and mushrooms I'd found. "Here," I said. "I think you can eat these."

"You're not sure?"

"Noooo." I poked a stick through one of my mushrooms and tried to roast it over my pathetic little fire.

"How do you know any of this?"

"My dad used to take me on camping trips," I said absently, watching the mushroom droop a bit. "Sometimes." Right, sometimes. Before he'd stared drinking majorly, and before Mum started going a little weird.

"Why did you stop?" Gazz actually sounded interested.

"We just did, OK."

"But why - "

"Gazz, you don't corner the emotional shit market, right? And I'm kind of pissed off right now, so just leave it."

He retreated to the circle of the fire where I couldn't see him anymore. I heard him mutter, "_Kind of_?"

The early apples were all right, but the mushrooms tasted like garbage, even roasted. They didn't kill me. Too bad, I thought, pulling the blanket up to my nose. I wondered if I could poison Gazz with something. He was so dumb he'd eat whatever I gave him. I decided that was probably too messy, and besides, it wasn't much good looking for the Bohemians without their precious Dreamer. Sucks. I didn't offer the share the blanket.

I woke up the next morning with the sun in my eyes. I sat up and looked around. And found that Gazz was nowhere in sight. What on Planet Mall had that stupid zone been – "Gazz?" I yelled. "Gazza Fizzer?"

He came around one of the rocks. "Yeah?"

"Where did you go?"

He shrugged irritably. "What are you, like my baby-sitter?"

"Well, you need one."

"There's water over there," he said. "You know, a creek or something. It's kind of cold, but if you wanted…"

It was kind of cold, but I managed to get a sort of scrub, which was what I needed. We'd gotten lucky with running water outside the bus too. I wondered where it was anyway; someplace in Old France, probably. I came back to our camp and stopped outside the circle. Gazz was silhouetted against the morning, perched on one of the rocks, eating a left-over apple and singing kind of absent-mindedly. "Who wants," nibble, "to live," another nibble, "forever?" He took a proper bite and chewed, staring off into the mountains and seeing something I couldn't. "Who dares," crunch, "to love," slurp, "forever?" Crunch, crunch, crunch. He tossed the apple core away and said moodily, "Who waits forever anyway?"

I walked into the circle and started putting the junk back in my rucksack, trying to calculate how much farther we had to go. My feet killed; Heartbreak rock'n'roll shoes _definitely_ not meant for hiking. Gazz slid off his rock and handed me some of the wires. "Here you go, Scara." Was that an apology? That would be nice. "So, um. Do you know the way back to the bus? Because I was thinking - "

Bastard. Complete, utter, unspeakable bastard. "No, Gazz, you weren't. You don't think."

"But - "

"I'm not going back to sit around here while you get to have all the fun, so don't even _try_ asking." I tossed the rucksack over my shoulder. "Anytime. Besides, you'll probably get lost."

"Well, which way am I 'supposed' to be going?"

"That way. I told you so."

He stamped off in the direction I'd pointed, and I followed. I thought about how good it would feel to throw a nice heavy rock at the centre of that bloody leather jacket.

The morning was pretty quiet; Gazz walked onwards and thought, I guess, Gazz-like thoughts, which probably means nothing even remotely constructive, and I thought of all the things I would do to him once we had finished saving the world, if we both survived to talk about it. We didn't stop for any kind of lunch mostly because we didn't have any. Gazz had considerately eaten all the apples. In the early afternoon the sun was out properly, and it was getting really hot. I didn't know about Gazz, but I was royally pissed off and tired of trailing after him. Right now it looked like he was pretending I wasn't there. Much good may it do him, I thought. The path thing we were following got a little rougher and started a slow slant up which was a good thing, even it got kind of hard to walk on. I had a blister on my left foot and it hurt like hell. I looked out over the view and to my left I saw the huge bowl-shape of a bright blue lake. "Wow," I whispered. "Lake Geneva." It was a gorgeous color. We were more or less where we wanted to be; just up that hill, I guess. Gazz started walking up the hill fast. Damn him and his long legs. I'd stopped to look at the view so I had to run a bit to catch up with him. Ow. Blister _not_ good. "Oi, oi, you slow down, will you?" Long pause. Dude, he definitely wasn't deaf, so…he was still ignoring me.

"No, you keep up."

"I've got shorter legs than you!" Asshole.

Gazz turned, finally, to look at me. Yep, Gazz, I'm still here. What on flipping Planet Mall makes you think that I'm going to stop following you. Following…how humiliating. I glared back and he paled a little, then turned and walked even faster. Just because I asked you to slow down doesn't mean you can lose me, I thought, glaring at the set of the shoulders in front of me. "Don't worry," I heard him mutter. "Your mouth makes up for them."

Now hang on _just_ a minute; that was _well_ out of line. I stopped in the middle of the path. "Didn't seem to bother you last night."

Gazz spun round, cheeks pink, obviously annoyed enough to forget that nothing had happened last night; I meant the bus, and he knew it. "Hey," he said. "That was below the belt."

I put my hands on my hips, and looked significantly at his jeans. He went even pinker; now that's an amusing sight. Guys just _shouldn't_ blush that color of pink. "Every inch of you raised in manly indignation, huh?"

"Now, hang on _just_ a minute," said Gazz. "That's not - "

"Not like there's many inches there anyway."

Gazz was properly red now. "Watch it, Scaramouche."

"Or what? Come on, or what?"

"Or else," he said, and kept walking, but a bit slower. He seemed to be replaying the conversation in his head or something. Once he looked back over his shoulder, then forward again and I heard him make a little noise, like, "Tcha."

"Tcha," I imitated. Oh, you think you're sooo cool, don't you, Galileo Figaro? Rocker out to save the world and all that crap. I got two words for you: Bull Shit.

"What?" He glanced round at me, protesting faintly.

"What?" I said, innocently. Then I tripped, and fell over Gazz's feet.

"Hey," he snapped. Round the bend we got another bit of tricky path. We both tripped this time and I got an elbow in the ribs.

"Hey," I snapped back. Watch it, you little…

I walked a bit faster until I was right behind him. Then I jumped at him and he shoved me away. "You gotta stop doing that," he said, catching himself on one of the rocks. Oh yeah? Who says? "Don't look at me like that."

"You gonna stop me?"

"Go away, Scaramouche."

"Uh, how about no?"

"Here we stand, or here we fall. Piss off, Scara." I kept walking towards him. "We'll wake the dead, fight the fights. Well, baby, mercy won't be home tonight."

I gritted my teeth. "_Don't Call Me Baby_! And I can _so_ take you out. You don't waste no time at all; you're just waiting for the hammer to fall. Just keep walking; you're not going to get rid of me." He went round a bend in the rocks and, following, I nearly tripped over one of his outstretched feet. As it was, I stumbled and banged my shins on another rock. "Hey!" I planted my hands on his chest and pushed him backward.

"Hey," he imitated, waving his arms like he thought he was _so_ funny.

"Yeah." I said. Don't you mess with me.

"Yeah," he echoed again, grabbing my shoulders and shoving me.

"Every night, and every day, a little piece of you is falling away." I kicked a rock at him like a football. He jumped out of the way and the rock skidded off the edge of the slope which was, I looked after it, kind of high. "Don't mind me, Gazz, let the anesthetic cover it all. Till one day they call your name; you'll know it's time for the hammer to fall." I glared at his back. "Someday, someone is going to get you, Gazza."

"Time for the hammer to fall," Gazz echoed. The path turned again, but instead of just walking, he spun round and grabbed my wrists. With a grunt, he pushed me round the corner and up against the rocks. "Scara, just stop, OK?" He gave me an extra shake. "Just bloody well stop. Turn around, walk down that hill, and wait at the bottom. I'll be done soon, right." I struggled and kicked, and I definitely landed a few. He changed color and let go.

"Rich or poor or famous, for your truth it's all the same. Oh no…Lock your doors…Forget 'someone else'. Gazz, _I_ am going to _get_ you. Now your struggle's all in vain. And that is a _promise_."

"What the hell are we fighting for, anyway?" said Gazz, shoving his hair out of his eyes. "Just surrender and it won't hurt at all."

"You just got time to say your prayers while you're waiting for the hammer to fall." We managed to say that line together and then eyed each other. We were almost up the hill; it was flat here for a bit, and there was another pretty steep slope at the other end. It looked like there was a building at the top. I guess that's where we were going.

Gazz grabbed my arms the same moment I grabbed his and we wrestled for a few minutes with our really eloquent refrain for "Hey!" and "Yeah?"

Finally Gazz tripped backwards and fell on his butt. I grinned, and watched him get back up again. His mouth set hard, he walked up the really steep slope towards the house. I ran after him and caught up at the top of the slope. He looked over his shoulder. "Cut it out, Scara," he said, and pushed me backwards. I was out of breath and completely off-balance, so I went tumbling down the hill in a cloud of dust and small rocks.

Shit. Fucking _hell,_ that hurt. Ow. My bones seemed to be in the right places, but still. Ouch. I sat up and tried to inhale but I immediately choked on the dust and started coughing. I managed to stand – just about – and look up. Gazz was there, looking down at me and _laughing_. God damn him. Damn him to hell; to Killer Queen; to Boyzone Land, whatever. Just give him eternal pain, suffering and torture for the rest of his days and then some. I walked up the hill again, trying to get all the dust off. When I got to the top he was _still_ laughing.

He got a good look at me then, with cuts and bruises on my knees, and pretty much brown all over from the dust. "Nice…" He sang a phrase of music, "Just waiting for the hammer to fall…hammer to fa-all." Oh, my, God…he did rock screams _and_ he played air guitar. He pulled one fist back and punched the air with the other. "Ye-ah! Well, give it to me one more time!"

I gathered all the dignity I had left. "In your d_ream_s, mate." Then I pushed past him and went into the house.


End file.
